U.S. Pat. No. 7,171,409, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference, discloses an information search and indexing method in which information is organized as a plurality of responses to possible queries. The collection of responses may be thought of as an information base. For each response in the information base, a Boolean expression that may be applied to possible queries searching for that response is formulated and stored in association with that response. When a query is received, stored Boolean expressions for the multiple responses in the information base are applied to the query. Responses associated with the expressions that are wholly or partially satisfied by the query may be presented to an information seeker.
U.S. application Ser. No. 12/558,001 (published as U.S. Publication No. 2011/0066620), the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference, discloses a method of automatically formulating Boolean expressions for responses from representative queries entered by operators for each of those responses, where each representative query represent a possible text query (e.g., a natural language query) from an end-user searching for information addressed by that response. Responses are thus indexed using these manually entered representative queries and automatically formulated Boolean expressions. Indexed responses may then be searched and retrieved in response to user queries.
However, while Boolean expressions may be automatically formulated from representative queries, indexing still largely relies on an operator to manually craft the representative queries for each response. In particular, formulating Boolean expressions tolerant to variations in text queries from information seekers, e.g., variations arising from the use of synonymous query terms, requires an operator to craft the representative queries in anticipation of those variations. As will be appreciated, the task of preparing and tailoring representative queries in anticipation of myriad variations in the text queries requires both an exercise of skill and judgment by an operator as well as an investment of time. Moreover, this challenge is faced each time that new responses and/or representative queries are added to an information base.
Accordingly, there remains a need for improved methods, software, and devices for preparing representative queries during indexing of responses in an information base.